Fyodor Tyutchev

HIS LIFE AND POETRY: TWO BOOKS FROM BRIMSTONE PRESS

Russians have long recognised FYODOR TYUTCHEV (1803-1873) as one of the brightest stars in their literary firmament. For Dostoyevsky he was 'our great poet', for Turgenev (who published his first volume of verse) 'one of our most remarkable poets'. He was the favourite poet of Leo Tolstoy, who declared: 'One cannot live without him'. In the considered judgement of Afanasy Fet he was quite simply 'one of the greatest lyric poets ever to have existed on this earth'. According to Vladimir Nabokov, ‘his short lyrics belong to the greatest ever written in Russian’. Yet outside Russia Tyutchev's (or Tiutchev's) name remains curiously unknown.

John Dewey's critically acclaimed books on Tyutchev offer a deep insight into the man and his poetry: